Aubrey got his comeuppance yesterday. At Chesapeake Energy's annual meeting in Oklahoma City shareholders showed their disgust with him and the board. Directors V. Burns Hargis and Richard K. Davidson received just 26% and 27% of votes. They will be among the four boardmembers soon to be replaced, along with Charlie Maxwell, who announced his retirement at 80. After just 85 shareholders attended last year's meeting, this year 230 showed up; 85% of total shares outstanding were represented by proxy. Among other moves, those shareholders voted to reincorporate the company in Delaware, which doesn't have Oklahoma's shareholder-unfriendly laws that Chesapeake helped put in place.

Cheryl Gustitus, a spokeswoman for Institutional Shareholder Services, reportedly said the day was the “high-watermark and one of the biggest protest votes ever registered at a U.S. annual meeting.”

I disagree. I think they ought to
give McClendon a chance to redeem himself.

Now I've been as vocal as anyone in criticizing McClendon's recklessness, starting with this piece back in 2009 where I urged Chesapeake partner BP to buy the whole company and save shareholders from McClendon.

Yet now that the tsunami of public opinion has engulfed him, now that he will at long last be governed by a competent board of directors, the contrarian in me is feeling almost … sympathetic towards the guy.

Yes, he's had longstanding conflicts of interest with his Founders Well Participation Program. Yes, he's likely breached his fiduciary duty to shareholders with his secret hedge funds and massive personal loans from the company's lenders. Yes, he's made some bad investments and leveraged the company up to its beady eyeballs. Yes, he's made shareholders pay for lots of lavish (but mostly immaterial) perks like plane rides and a beautiful corporate campus.

But contrast that with what this megalomaniacal micromanaging risktaker has built. A giant company with unparalleled assets that undergird the shale gas miracle that came out of nowhere to provide the U.S. with 100 years or more of clean-burning natural gas. McClendon has led the charge of this supply revolution. No one has grabbed more land or drilled more wells. No one has paid more money to poor farmers in the middle of nowhere who 10 years ago would have ever dreamed there was oil and gas under their fields.

McClendon is not just the quintessential wildcatter of his generation, he's the quintessential baby boomer -- always wanting more, more, more and willing to borrow, borrow, borrow to get it.

The quote of the day for me yesterday came from Vincent Intrieri, who works for Carl Icahn at Icahn Capital. He called McClendon a "great oil and gas man," but said, "even great executives need vigilant oversight."

That oversight is already in effect. In a presentation to shareholders the company said it intends to "simplify the company" in shifting from "capture to harvest mode."